Cal’s 1st Birthday “TropiCAL getaway” Theme
My baby boy named Calvin but we call him Cal turned one and he is such a happy and sunshine boy i wanted to do something that represented that. One day I was texting my husband, Ryan theme ideas and I said maybe something tropical. As I was typing I freaked out and I said OMG tropiCAL. And the rest was history.
Let's just get right into it to see everything I did to pull this fun and unique party off.
TropiCAL Themed Birthday Invitation
I have the most talented friend who runs her own small business and I ALWAYS call on her to design party themes that I have in my head. I had the color scheme in mind from an inspiration picture that had papayas, bananas, spray painted blue florals and a linen tablecloth! I am ALWAYS inspired by Floral Disco. So I sent Emily at Farmer Johns Creative Co. the moodboard and as always she made such a beautiful design for the invitations and all the signage! I mostly just send a text with the invitation out to our family and friends but I did end up printing a few for family who likes the paper copy better.
Shaved Ice Setup Details
We did end up feeding people with real food, but we knew we wanted a special treat stand that would make the guests feel special and get something that they could normally only get on an island. We brought in our catering cart and decked it out with all of the best fruit, flavors, and shaved ice we could get. And living in a secluded small town, tropical fruit is HARD to find.
One of my favorite things I ended up crafting for this party was their own custom candy favors. I chose lifesaver gummies and skittles and my friend made these simple but beautiful designs. For this craft I took her design and made a candy wrapper on Canva. Bought photo paper to print it on and then hot glued it together put the candy inside and finished it off with a fun crimper that I got off of Amazon. I mean they turned out perfect... my main problem was that I forgot them at home, so by the time I realized I didn't have them it was too late.. needless to say we ate only those types of candy for awhile at home haha. oops.
I knew I had to have Coleman Cookie Co design me some fabulous cookies for this party, so i sent her the moodboard and she DELIVERED. Okay it was just perfect. I also knew that I wanted to have a cake there and couldn't pass up a cake that looked like a sandcastle.
Decoration Details
I love balloons as a medium of decor for parties so I went with a super big arch that guests walk through to get into the party and then used some more behind the high chair spot. Because surfboards are no where to be found in the middle of eastern Oregon, I decided to make some out of foamcore board and then paint them. The queen of all things foamcore is Lily from The Creative Heart. If you need to learn how to cut, paint, shape, or anything she is the best teacher.
For the kids table I wanted it to be fun, full of life, and make you feel as if you were at a tropical restaurant with playful touches. I found the pineapple and palm tree cups at the Dollar Store, and a bonus was that they had LED lights in the bottom. The kids LOVED them. My fave girl owns the plant store and she let me borrow all of her airplants that I used as our floral touches on the table. I used small pots and sandcastle buckets as pots and vases. If you know me, you know that I am a COLLECTOR of paper plates and tableware. These Meri Meri sunshine plates have since been retired, but I pulled them out of my own vault for this perfect time and added kids sunglasses as a favor on top. A SUNSHINE WEARING SUNGLASSES are you kidding me?!?
